Electrostatic spray guns are well-known and have been used for a number of years now. It has always been the desire of designers of such guns to reduce the capacitance, that is, the amount of energy storage in the front end of the gun and to provide an efficient resistor system there so that the gun is as safe and efficient as possible.
Two recent representative designs in this area are shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,241,880 and 4,497,447.